‘Glenridding and Beyond’ – Sheffield Pike Friday

Or How to Achieve Excellent Muscle Definition, the Path Located and One of our Five a Day – Well Maybe…

The sun pours in and we lie in bed just being happy. I have promised Darrell a two bagel, four coffee breakfast and Millie an extra hour or two in bed…

This morning Millie doesn’t run off when we get the Julius but she does lie flat on the grass with her head on her paws looking resigned to her fate.

We take a scree path that winds up Glenridding Dodd from behind Rake Cottages on the Greenside Road. It is a long, hot slog to the top but nowhere near as difficult as it looks from the campsite and even Millie manages most of it without being carried.

She locates a tiny trickle of water by smell alone and drinks deeply.

We follow a series of cairns and arrive at the summit where we look out over Ullswater. Millie takes it into her head to rumble at vehicles that she can see far below.

We scramble up a narrow path to Heron Pike. It is a hot, dry climb so when we come on a tarn we put her in for a swim. This revitalises her so much that she is soon leaping about chasing butterflies.

It is beautiful up here, springy turf, blue sky, larks and no one but us…

We carry on to Sheffield Pike and look at the mountains spread out before us. We can name them all now as we have walked most of the ones we can see.

We descend through a swathe of bog cotton to Nick Head on the path that we couldn’t locate last Saturday. We pass a metal boundary post that has the initials ‘H’ and ‘M’ on it marking the boundary of land between Howard of Greystoke and Marshall of Patterdale.

We don’t go as far as the footbridge but ford the beck and then descend on the track by the mine.

Two fell runners pass us going hell for leather uphill. Millie who is picking her way down far more slowly than your average snail looks at them as if they are totally bonkers.

As we walk I complement Darrell on his fitness and his Putin-like body.

“Comes from carrying a toilet full of pee and lugging a dog up mountains” he says…

Back in camp we have run out of bananas and so have to compromise by eating jelly babies but as they contain fruit juice I decide that they could count as one of our five a day – well maybe…

Later we take a slow walk along the beck as it is such a beautiful evening. Millie is handed over fences for cuddles, says hello to children and joins in passing barbecues. She also manages, somehow to dawdle even slower than normal. By the time we finally arrive back our drinks are stone cold and the sun has gone down…